So here is the first half of the modified wish list after listening to everyone's reflection. The urgency of the wishes are in priority order.
1. Planes should be flying but not teleporting
The current HOI4 flight system will just teleport planes to the mission area to do their missions until all the planes were shot down or players cancel the mission and teleport back to base.
If HOI4 can do this animation to convince player planes are actually flying that means the game has a speed and distance mechanic and it also has a mechanic to calculate how much area of the strategic region is covered by the range of an air squadron. The dev very probably has the tool to make a mechanic allow the game to put out an array or list of provinces or strategic regions an air squadron would fly over from what time to what time. Using this mechanic to allow planes to teleport orderly from strategic region to strategic regions or using the "ghost mechanic" that @sterrius mentioned to mimic flying. To further saving RAM, the combat data of a flying squadron can be generated or loaded after it is detected by the enemy.
2. Fix the agility to save Jets
Players also identified that the jets need a buff. Their huge speed has no benefit because when air combat agility is the dominant factor of dealing damage. That may due to the fact that in the agility is used on two modifiers are dependent on agility which is stats multiplier and agility disadvantage, however, only one modifier is dependent on speed which is stats multiplier. Also, jets are different types of planes. The existing elite flying corps could not use the Jetfighters and Jetbombers. You have to create new green squadrons and delete the elite ones. Also, Design companies don't benefit from jets.
To increase the importance of speed we can add a new modifier called "speed disadvantage" which works similarly to the speed disadvantage into the Combat formula. The Combat formula would change from this
To this
speed disadvantage: if the defender has more speed, a penalty of up to -100% is applied. The maximum penalty is reached at a speed difference of 200 km/h.
Furthermore, the game should introduce a conversion mechanics into the game to allow squadrons to change the plane they fly and retain some of the Exp after changing their gear. It is quite common in and after WWII JU87 change to FW190 F, F-51 change to F-82(heavy fighter) change to F-86 (jet fighter).
3. Fix the front line CAS.
Currently, planes need to have ranges that covered the whole strategic region to get no range penalty to ground attack enemies at the front line only when battles occurred. This problem becomes more serious in those big strategic regions in Russia and the USA.
To fix this problem, the next DLC could introduce a range radius Area of Effect system. Planes could project their effect though out their operation range but not just selected Strategic region. For Strategic region base missions like Air superiority, Naval strike and Strategic bombing, their range penalty would be calculated in the same way as it was, but there will be no range penalty for province base missions like CAS and Port Strike. (You can choose which strategic region they need not perform CAS and Port Strike.)
4. Smoothen the production system
Although it is not totally related to air combat mechanics, it still very annoying to deal with the organization system on the supplier side. Why do players need to start up a new production line manually after I start training a new unit or building a new carrier, while the game knows exactly what and how many we need. The next DLC should include an auto production line system, when I start training a unit or building a new ship the game would start up a production line for the needing equipment that are not currently producing. This system should be more complicated than the previous sentence that it can cover all the scenario player wants and what will happen in the game.
The things I can think of is
5. Implanting Flying Boat that can land on port and seaplane tender to the game.
In WWII Flying Boat play important roles in many sea battles like “Midway”, “The Sinking of Bismarck” and etc. Adding flying boats/floatplanes that can launch from warships, land in port and seaplane tender into the next DLC would greatly increase the immersion of HOI4. Although people said that 2-4 floatplanes from each warship would do anything meaningful and not worth any resource and time to micromanage and research, after reading the battle report of IJN in the first phase of the Pacific War. Floatplanes would be used in a fleet squadron to perform Recon, Air Superiority, Intercepting and CAS missions. When a ship with floatplane joined a fleet, its floatplanes would automatically join the fleet squadron. Cruiser and Battleship in WWII would have about 4 to 6 floatplanes, carrier cruiser, carrier battleship and seaplane tender would even have about 20 to 30 floatplanes. So for a normal USN fleet with about 20 battleships and cruisers, its fleet squadron would have about 80 to 120 floatplanes at player disposal. In naval combat, the floatplanes would work as same as carrier aircraft. At the same time catapult should still be able to provide detection bonuses to the ship when the fleet has air superiority.
6.Plane Designer
6.1.Factory Modification
Although some upgrade is suitable to present in term of percentage bonus, however, upgrade like changing guns and engine should resulting in a change in actual value. The next DLC should allow players to change and add following parts in the plans for factory modification
Improved mechanic like new radio, radar, cockpit, heater, autopilot computer, Cockpit, gun sight (Things do not affect flying performance but affect how the pilot perform, it should work in bonus modifier)
Engine Boost like MW-50, GM-1 ( increase the horsepower and ceiling altitude)
Engine
Gun
Improve Air Dynamic (Increase speed by reducing drag)
Gun Turret (Defensive Attack)
Schräge Musik (Interceptor Attack)
extra power source (extra engine, rocket boost and etc)
Changing Wing (Increase ceiling altitude, wing area)
Wing Fuel Tank
6.2 Field Modification
Plane in world war ii can field modify in the airport to perform different missions with different configurations. It would allow player to use pkanes more flaxiblely.
The next DLC should allow aircraft squadron to field modify the following part in the airport.
different bombload (should become more and more powerful when the bomb tech increase)
torpedo and deep charge (for different target with different accuracy)
Gun pod (Increase Weight, Air attack)
Addition Cockpit Armor (Increase Weight, Air defence)
Rocket (Interceptor Attack)
Or unload all the guns (reduce weight and space for installing otherthings)
replacing axel propeller (Reduce Weight )
Camera (for reconnaissance)
Fuel Drop Tank (Increase range)
To generalize the micromanagement, players can set up a field modification set for each kind of mission a plane model can participate.
7. Overhaul Agility.
The agility of planes in real life has two major components, they are climb rate and turn rate. However, the current in-game Agility is just an arithmetic sequence increase with the tier of different types of planes. Clearly any plane in-game did not resemble the flying performance of their real-life counterpart, for example, biplanes have a very high turn rate but very bad climb rate, advanced fighters would have a much worse turn rate but very good climb rate. Nevertheless, Agility is a simple mechanic and works very well with the current bonus upgrade system, however, it won’t work very well with the designer system which allows players to change the stats of the plane directly.
The main reason is it is impossible to balance out different variations of design with remarking distinction by only one variable. Therefore, I suggest introducing wing load which is proportional to turn rate and specific power which is proportional to the climb rate to replace agility to allow aircraft and air combat in HOI4 to have more variation.
I understand that HOI4 is an Authentic real-time war simulator but not a flight simulator, but to really reflect some great historic air duel like Zero vs Wild Cat, Messerschmitt vs Spitfire the concept of turn rate and climb rate should introduce to the game. But in real life turn rate is dependent on flying speed and climb rate is dependent on altitude. This system is already a very simple try to mimic reality.
The following valve shell replace agility and become the basic value of air equipment;
Weight
Engine Power
Wing Area
They would contribute to the final Specific Power and Wing Load value that would roughly represent the general climb rate and turn rate of a plane:
Climb rate=Specific Power = Engine Power/ Weight of Plane
Turn Rate=Wing Load* = Wing Area/ Weight of Plane
* Wing Load is actually Weight of Plane/ Wing Area but there is no actual term for Wing Area/ Weight of Plane
Climb Rate and Turn Rate shell eventually substituted Agility with the following equation:
The aims of Turn Rate factor and Climb Rate factor is to fit the combination of Turn Rate and Climb Rate into a similar order of Agility
8.Overhaul Mission System
However, in the current system, the field and factory modification would be heavily limited by the current system. As in the current system, the type of target that planes can attack is limited by the type of plane they are. However historically planes can perform wild range of missions, for example, Heavy fighters and fighters could perform Naval strike, Port Strike and ASW with bomb, torpedo and deep charge; Recon mission with installed cameras.
Currently, the game differentiates different kinds of planes by what target the can attack, however, in reality, what really differentiates planes type is how they attack but not what they can attack.
it is confusing, the solution I proposed is in the next DLC what mission a plane can join should be determined by its loadout but not its model.
The real distinction between planes should not be the enemy target they can attack, but how they conduct attacks. In WWII there are mostly three major ways to conduct ground attack they are level bombing, dive-bombing and strafing (including skip bombing).
If the plane has air to ground rocket it can do dive attack.
If the plane has air to air rocket it can do intercepting.
If the plane has bombs would increase one plane ground attack and bombing value.
If the plane has guns it can do dive attack, strafing attack, Air Superiority, Intercepting and Interdicting mission.
If the plane can have bombsight it can do high altitude level bombing. (above 300m)
If the plane has dive breaks it can perform dive-bombing with greater accuracy.
If the plane has Schräge Musik it can do Intercepting missions.
Allowing which plane to install installments like dive breaks and Schräge Musik should be available with air doctrine.
With those types of attacking mission planes can participate. Players can choose the target which the plane squadron can attack.
Dive-bombing and Strafing can attack enemy units and damage infrastructure( bridge, train ship, and convey with great accuracy.
Low altitude level bombing can attack enemy units and damage infrastructure( bridge, train ship, and convey with minor accuracy.
High altitude level bombing can damage enemy buildings, industry, and infrastructure.
9.Introduce hard ground attack for ground attacker
Planes that mainly use autocannon like Ju87G, Hs 129, Yak-9Y are specifically made for shooting tanks accurately. They are unable to attack infantry effectively, so they should have their own AP and Hard attack against armored vehicles, which are distant from machine guns and rocket that can only attack soft target effectively, while bombs are the vanilla between hard attack and soft attack
By adding in hard attack and AP into ground attack. The new ground attack would be:
Total soft ground attack = Number of planes* ground attack
Total hard ground attack = Number of planes* hard ground attack*accuracy
Accuracy is added as damage to an armored target could only be dealt with a hit, as hard attack in ground battle it only attacks hard units, while ground attack only attacks soft units. The armor the hard unit would have a 70% to 90% reduction modifier to represent being hit from the side and the top. Other than that the hard ground attack and ground attack work the as same as the old ground attack. The damage to the initiative and the organization should always be dealt no matter if the ground attack hit or not. Therefore the total damage for calculating damage values against organization and strength would be:
Number of planes*(ground attack+ hard ground attack)
10.Introduce defensive attack system
In the current system, how bombers return fire in the same way how fighter dogfight. Makes turret-firing bombers work in the same way of forward-firing fighters is a disaster. The air attack of STR Bomber needs to be serval times higher than any other plane to compensate their lack of agility. In the current air combat system damage to the defender is based on how well the attacker chases the defender tail and makes a hit. However bomber rarely moved in flight, the turret would attack the incoming attacker. The higher the agility of the attacker is the lower the change of it getting hit, but it won’t be affected by the agility of the bomber as the bomber would only use their agility to avoid the attacker attack, so it would only reduce the hitting chance of the turret.The lesser speed difference between the bomber and its chaser, the longer time interval the bomber turret has to shoot against the attacker. The new equation would be
View attachment 600494
This formula would solely calculate the damage caused by the gun turret. It would run parallel with the normal damage formula for a plane with both forward-firing guns and gun turret.
11.Introduce Interceptor attack system
In world war two, different kinds of weapons like Schräge Musik Rocket, high caliber 30-105mm machine cannons were developed to solely intercept bombers in few shots. The air attack of those intercepting weapons would be massive and would be considered very OP against other planes. To solve this problem, the next DLC could introduce the intercepting attack which only works in intercepting level bombing missions. In such system, the game can make installing Schräge Musik, high caliber machine cannon and rocket meaningful in a non exploited way. The new total air attack would be
The intercepting air attack factor would be a positive constant when intercepting bomber that performing level STR bombing (not Air interdiction), 0 for other mission.
12.Introduce Altitude System
Altitude advantage was one of the Allies’ edge against Germany in the West and German’s edge against Soviet in the East. Overhauling the Air Combat System with the Altitude mechanic would increase the choice and variety of the current Air Combat System.
In general, Altitude would be negatively proportioned to the AA hit chance and the bombing hit chance, and positively proportioned to the max level speed of a plane below its optimum altitude and negatively proportioned to the max level speed of a plane above its optimum altitude. The next DLC could use Linear Interpolation to mimic this phenomenon.
To calculate the level speed of a plane on any attitude the following value need to add into the plane stats
Here is the old air combat system, every plane flies and fights on the same altitude. Simple and Easy.
First talk about dogfight in the new system.
While fighters doing Air Superiority/Interception mission. They initially fly on their maximum speed altitude. The higher fighter (attacker) discovers the lower plane (defender) and starts fighting. The attacker would dive to the defender altitude. The attacker speeds would change to the attacker's level speed on the defender altitude by Linear Interpolation (While Altitude=0 Ground Speed ) plus dive speed ( 50* change of altitude per km). Then the attacker will fight with the defender with its new speed.
In the case that the mission altitude of the defender is higher than the attacker. The lower fighter (attacker) discovers the higher plane (defender) and starts fighting. The attacker would climb to the defender altitude. The attacker speeds would change to the attacker's level speed on the defender altitude by Linear Interpolation (While Altitude=Maximum Altitude, Ceiling Speed). Then the attacker fight with the defender with its new speed.
If the mission altitude of the defender is higher than the ceiling altitude of the attacker. The attacker would be unable to deal any disruption and damage to the defender.
Therefore an altitude factor would be added to the final disruption formula that the distribution formula would become.
Which altitude factor would be 0 when the mission altitude of the defender is higher than the ceiling altitude of the attacker, 1 in other scenarios.
The bombing accuracy should also decrease when the bombing altitude increase.
12.1. Mission Altitude and Tech Tree
Historically different missions were performed at different altitudes even for the same plane to balance the safety of the plane and the accuracy of bombing. Those mission altitudes were found out by many tries and errors. Therefore, in-game Tech Tree should new doctrine and technology to conduct air missions.
For example, initially TAC bomber would attack ship with level bombing in high altitude with a very low hit chance.
Researching naval strike doctrine tree that would first reduce the mission level bombing altitude which would increase the hit chance by game mechanic, not by modifier. The next step would allow TAC bomber to perform Skip-bombing which would attack from ground level which would increase the accuracy greatly. For the final doctrine, it would allow TAC bomber to do Mast-height bombing which would increase the accuracy of Skip-bombing with a modifier.
Tech-wise, guide-bomb like Fritz X would change the bombing altitude of naval strike.
In low-level ground attack wise. Initially, TAC bomber could only conduct bombing with low altitude level bombing, fighters could only dive attack and staff with guns. There would be two branches after the level bombing, strafing and dive-bombing. The dive-bombing tree would allow players to build dive-bomber; then allow fighter to carry bomb; the third one would TAC bomber to install dive brakes and perform dive-bombing; The final doctrine would allowing fighters to carrier rocket. The strafing branch would allow planes to perform skip bombing; then allow TAC bomber to equip gun pod.
The level bombing tree would be the tactic that increases the accuracy of level bombing.
Technology-wise, technology like radar, bombsight, engine, and producing tool should increase plane maximum altitude, maximum level bombing altitude and level bombing accuracy.
The rough altitude for air AA and altitude for ground AA of different proposed mission are as follow:
12.2. Differentiate Heavy/Medium/Light AA gun from AA gun
Historically, Heavy/Medium/Light AA guns have different effective ceilings design to shoot at planes at different altitudes. Light AA from bullet caliber to 30mm would usually not connect to any director and only aim by sight would have an effective ceiling from 0 to 910m. Medium AA with caliber from 20mm to 57mm would be connected to fire directors, its effective ceiling would be from 0 to 6000m. Heavy AA with caliber start from 70 mm would able to arm its ammo with time fuse its effective ceiling would start from 910m. The altitude and efficiency of AA would increase with the R&D of fuze and director.
Other than deploying at the frontline to fight against hostile CAS, ground target and armor vehicles in the frontline, Anti-Air Battalion primarily deployed at port, airport, and city to repel enemy air strategic attack. For example, the 2nd Anti-Aircraft Brigade of UK was deployed in the Battle of France and Britain, and the North African and Italian campaigns, shooting at both strategic bombers in the rear and ground targets on the frontline. With the current off-map garrison update, would it be possible to let the garrisoning Anti-Air Battalion have some static AA value to engage strategic bombing.
Here are the proposing maximum ranges for different types of AA in different tiers.
However, the effective range of AA was proved to be heavily hindered by limitations of human limitation, fuze time and gun-laying director. Therefore the effective range of those guns should never reach their maximum ones, but by developing new technology a wider effective range should be achieved.
Here's are two examples of those limitations:
For the first case, the first problem is because the shell would at least fly about 910m even with the shortest times fuze setting. This range limit of above 910 can be solved by using VT fuze.
For the second case, the effective range of Light AA is heavily hindered by human limitations on manually aimed. This range limit of below 910 can be unlocked by using more advanced gun directors that can use with Light AA.
The hit chance of State anti-air would reduce by half per every 1500km of altitude.
The efficiency decay formula would be
hit chance modifier: the "Static Anti Air hit chance factor" modifier (fuse, Radar and computer tech can increase the chance of hitting for 3 to 4 times)
1. Planes should be flying but not teleporting
The current HOI4 flight system will just teleport planes to the mission area to do their missions until all the planes were shot down or players cancel the mission and teleport back to base.
If HOI4 can do this animation to convince player planes are actually flying that means the game has a speed and distance mechanic and it also has a mechanic to calculate how much area of the strategic region is covered by the range of an air squadron. The dev very probably has the tool to make a mechanic allow the game to put out an array or list of provinces or strategic regions an air squadron would fly over from what time to what time. Using this mechanic to allow planes to teleport orderly from strategic region to strategic regions or using the "ghost mechanic" that @sterrius mentioned to mimic flying. To further saving RAM, the combat data of a flying squadron can be generated or loaded after it is detected by the enemy.
2. Fix the agility to save Jets
Players also identified that the jets need a buff. Their huge speed has no benefit because when air combat agility is the dominant factor of dealing damage. That may due to the fact that in the agility is used on two modifiers are dependent on agility which is stats multiplier and agility disadvantage, however, only one modifier is dependent on speed which is stats multiplier. Also, jets are different types of planes. The existing elite flying corps could not use the Jetfighters and Jetbombers. You have to create new green squadrons and delete the elite ones. Also, Design companies don't benefit from jets.
To increase the importance of speed we can add a new modifier called "speed disadvantage" which works similarly to the speed disadvantage into the Combat formula. The Combat formula would change from this
To this
speed disadvantage: if the defender has more speed, a penalty of up to -100% is applied. The maximum penalty is reached at a speed difference of 200 km/h.
Furthermore, the game should introduce a conversion mechanics into the game to allow squadrons to change the plane they fly and retain some of the Exp after changing their gear. It is quite common in and after WWII JU87 change to FW190 F, F-51 change to F-82(heavy fighter) change to F-86 (jet fighter).
3. Fix the front line CAS.
Currently, planes need to have ranges that covered the whole strategic region to get no range penalty to ground attack enemies at the front line only when battles occurred. This problem becomes more serious in those big strategic regions in Russia and the USA.
To fix this problem, the next DLC could introduce a range radius Area of Effect system. Planes could project their effect though out their operation range but not just selected Strategic region. For Strategic region base missions like Air superiority, Naval strike and Strategic bombing, their range penalty would be calculated in the same way as it was, but there will be no range penalty for province base missions like CAS and Port Strike. (You can choose which strategic region they need not perform CAS and Port Strike.)
4. Smoothen the production system
Although it is not totally related to air combat mechanics, it still very annoying to deal with the organization system on the supplier side. Why do players need to start up a new production line manually after I start training a new unit or building a new carrier, while the game knows exactly what and how many we need. The next DLC should include an auto production line system, when I start training a unit or building a new ship the game would start up a production line for the needing equipment that are not currently producing. This system should be more complicated than the previous sentence that it can cover all the scenario player wants and what will happen in the game.
The things I can think of is
- players can lock what equipment to produce with how many factories.
- All but one factory would pull off from the auto production line after all demand is fulfilled. The last factory would pull off from the auto production line after the production line produces 1000 stockpile (players could change it themselves by either mod or in-game mechanics)
- If a new production line enter or an old line is pulled off from the auto slot, the factories in the auto slot( total factory minus the amount of factory use in the lock production slot) will redistribute among the auto production lines according to the total IC cost of each production line in the auto slot.
- Of course, players can turn off the auto production line system.
5. Implanting Flying Boat that can land on port and seaplane tender to the game.
In WWII Flying Boat play important roles in many sea battles like “Midway”, “The Sinking of Bismarck” and etc. Adding flying boats/floatplanes that can launch from warships, land in port and seaplane tender into the next DLC would greatly increase the immersion of HOI4. Although people said that 2-4 floatplanes from each warship would do anything meaningful and not worth any resource and time to micromanage and research, after reading the battle report of IJN in the first phase of the Pacific War. Floatplanes would be used in a fleet squadron to perform Recon, Air Superiority, Intercepting and CAS missions. When a ship with floatplane joined a fleet, its floatplanes would automatically join the fleet squadron. Cruiser and Battleship in WWII would have about 4 to 6 floatplanes, carrier cruiser, carrier battleship and seaplane tender would even have about 20 to 30 floatplanes. So for a normal USN fleet with about 20 battleships and cruisers, its fleet squadron would have about 80 to 120 floatplanes at player disposal. In naval combat, the floatplanes would work as same as carrier aircraft. At the same time catapult should still be able to provide detection bonuses to the ship when the fleet has air superiority.
6.Plane Designer
6.1.Factory Modification
Although some upgrade is suitable to present in term of percentage bonus, however, upgrade like changing guns and engine should resulting in a change in actual value. The next DLC should allow players to change and add following parts in the plans for factory modification
Improved mechanic like new radio, radar, cockpit, heater, autopilot computer, Cockpit, gun sight (Things do not affect flying performance but affect how the pilot perform, it should work in bonus modifier)
Engine Boost like MW-50, GM-1 ( increase the horsepower and ceiling altitude)
Engine
Gun
Improve Air Dynamic (Increase speed by reducing drag)
Gun Turret (Defensive Attack)
Schräge Musik (Interceptor Attack)
extra power source (extra engine, rocket boost and etc)
Changing Wing (Increase ceiling altitude, wing area)
Wing Fuel Tank
6.2 Field Modification
Plane in world war ii can field modify in the airport to perform different missions with different configurations. It would allow player to use pkanes more flaxiblely.
The next DLC should allow aircraft squadron to field modify the following part in the airport.
different bombload (should become more and more powerful when the bomb tech increase)
torpedo and deep charge (for different target with different accuracy)
Gun pod (Increase Weight, Air attack)
Addition Cockpit Armor (Increase Weight, Air defence)
Rocket (Interceptor Attack)
Or unload all the guns (reduce weight and space for installing otherthings)
replacing axel propeller (Reduce Weight )
Camera (for reconnaissance)
Fuel Drop Tank (Increase range)
To generalize the micromanagement, players can set up a field modification set for each kind of mission a plane model can participate.
7. Overhaul Agility.
The agility of planes in real life has two major components, they are climb rate and turn rate. However, the current in-game Agility is just an arithmetic sequence increase with the tier of different types of planes. Clearly any plane in-game did not resemble the flying performance of their real-life counterpart, for example, biplanes have a very high turn rate but very bad climb rate, advanced fighters would have a much worse turn rate but very good climb rate. Nevertheless, Agility is a simple mechanic and works very well with the current bonus upgrade system, however, it won’t work very well with the designer system which allows players to change the stats of the plane directly.
The main reason is it is impossible to balance out different variations of design with remarking distinction by only one variable. Therefore, I suggest introducing wing load which is proportional to turn rate and specific power which is proportional to the climb rate to replace agility to allow aircraft and air combat in HOI4 to have more variation.
I understand that HOI4 is an Authentic real-time war simulator but not a flight simulator, but to really reflect some great historic air duel like Zero vs Wild Cat, Messerschmitt vs Spitfire the concept of turn rate and climb rate should introduce to the game. But in real life turn rate is dependent on flying speed and climb rate is dependent on altitude. This system is already a very simple try to mimic reality.
The following valve shell replace agility and become the basic value of air equipment;
Weight
Engine Power
Wing Area
They would contribute to the final Specific Power and Wing Load value that would roughly represent the general climb rate and turn rate of a plane:
Climb rate=Specific Power = Engine Power/ Weight of Plane
Turn Rate=Wing Load* = Wing Area/ Weight of Plane
* Wing Load is actually Weight of Plane/ Wing Area but there is no actual term for Wing Area/ Weight of Plane
Climb Rate and Turn Rate shell eventually substituted Agility with the following equation:
The aims of Turn Rate factor and Climb Rate factor is to fit the combination of Turn Rate and Climb Rate into a similar order of Agility
8.Overhaul Mission System
However, in the current system, the field and factory modification would be heavily limited by the current system. As in the current system, the type of target that planes can attack is limited by the type of plane they are. However historically planes can perform wild range of missions, for example, Heavy fighters and fighters could perform Naval strike, Port Strike and ASW with bomb, torpedo and deep charge; Recon mission with installed cameras.
Currently, the game differentiates different kinds of planes by what target the can attack, however, in reality, what really differentiates planes type is how they attack but not what they can attack.
it is confusing, the solution I proposed is in the next DLC what mission a plane can join should be determined by its loadout but not its model.
The real distinction between planes should not be the enemy target they can attack, but how they conduct attacks. In WWII there are mostly three major ways to conduct ground attack they are level bombing, dive-bombing and strafing (including skip bombing).
If the plane has air to ground rocket it can do dive attack.
If the plane has air to air rocket it can do intercepting.
If the plane has bombs would increase one plane ground attack and bombing value.
If the plane has guns it can do dive attack, strafing attack, Air Superiority, Intercepting and Interdicting mission.
If the plane can have bombsight it can do high altitude level bombing. (above 300m)
If the plane has dive breaks it can perform dive-bombing with greater accuracy.
If the plane has Schräge Musik it can do Intercepting missions.
Allowing which plane to install installments like dive breaks and Schräge Musik should be available with air doctrine.
With those types of attacking mission planes can participate. Players can choose the target which the plane squadron can attack.
Dive-bombing and Strafing can attack enemy units and damage infrastructure( bridge, train ship, and convey with great accuracy.
Low altitude level bombing can attack enemy units and damage infrastructure( bridge, train ship, and convey with minor accuracy.
High altitude level bombing can damage enemy buildings, industry, and infrastructure.
9.Introduce hard ground attack for ground attacker
Planes that mainly use autocannon like Ju87G, Hs 129, Yak-9Y are specifically made for shooting tanks accurately. They are unable to attack infantry effectively, so they should have their own AP and Hard attack against armored vehicles, which are distant from machine guns and rocket that can only attack soft target effectively, while bombs are the vanilla between hard attack and soft attack
By adding in hard attack and AP into ground attack. The new ground attack would be:
Total soft ground attack = Number of planes* ground attack
Total hard ground attack = Number of planes* hard ground attack*accuracy
Accuracy is added as damage to an armored target could only be dealt with a hit, as hard attack in ground battle it only attacks hard units, while ground attack only attacks soft units. The armor the hard unit would have a 70% to 90% reduction modifier to represent being hit from the side and the top. Other than that the hard ground attack and ground attack work the as same as the old ground attack. The damage to the initiative and the organization should always be dealt no matter if the ground attack hit or not. Therefore the total damage for calculating damage values against organization and strength would be:
Number of planes*(ground attack+ hard ground attack)
10.Introduce defensive attack system
In the current system, how bombers return fire in the same way how fighter dogfight. Makes turret-firing bombers work in the same way of forward-firing fighters is a disaster. The air attack of STR Bomber needs to be serval times higher than any other plane to compensate their lack of agility. In the current air combat system damage to the defender is based on how well the attacker chases the defender tail and makes a hit. However bomber rarely moved in flight, the turret would attack the incoming attacker. The higher the agility of the attacker is the lower the change of it getting hit, but it won’t be affected by the agility of the bomber as the bomber would only use their agility to avoid the attacker attack, so it would only reduce the hitting chance of the turret.The lesser speed difference between the bomber and its chaser, the longer time interval the bomber turret has to shoot against the attacker. The new equation would be
View attachment 600494
This formula would solely calculate the damage caused by the gun turret. It would run parallel with the normal damage formula for a plane with both forward-firing guns and gun turret.
11.Introduce Interceptor attack system
In world war two, different kinds of weapons like Schräge Musik Rocket, high caliber 30-105mm machine cannons were developed to solely intercept bombers in few shots. The air attack of those intercepting weapons would be massive and would be considered very OP against other planes. To solve this problem, the next DLC could introduce the intercepting attack which only works in intercepting level bombing missions. In such system, the game can make installing Schräge Musik, high caliber machine cannon and rocket meaningful in a non exploited way. The new total air attack would be
The intercepting air attack factor would be a positive constant when intercepting bomber that performing level STR bombing (not Air interdiction), 0 for other mission.
12.Introduce Altitude System
Altitude advantage was one of the Allies’ edge against Germany in the West and German’s edge against Soviet in the East. Overhauling the Air Combat System with the Altitude mechanic would increase the choice and variety of the current Air Combat System.
In general, Altitude would be negatively proportioned to the AA hit chance and the bombing hit chance, and positively proportioned to the max level speed of a plane below its optimum altitude and negatively proportioned to the max level speed of a plane above its optimum altitude. The next DLC could use Linear Interpolation to mimic this phenomenon.
In mathematics, linear interpolation is a method of curve fitting using linear polynomials to construct new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points.
Let us say that we have two known points 1,1 and 2,2. Now we want to estimate what value we would get for some value that is between 1 and 2. Call this value estimate — an interpolated value. Two simple methods for choosing come to mind. The first is to see whether is closer to 1 or to 2. If is closer to 1 then we use 1 as the estimate, otherwise, we use 2. This is called nearest-neighbor interpolation. The second is to draw a straight line between 1,1 and 2,2. We look to see the value on the line for our chosen. This is a linear interpolation. It is possible to show that the formula of the line between 1,1 and 2,2 is:
Let us say that we have two known points 1,1 and 2,2. Now we want to estimate what value we would get for some value that is between 1 and 2. Call this value estimate — an interpolated value. Two simple methods for choosing come to mind. The first is to see whether is closer to 1 or to 2. If is closer to 1 then we use 1 as the estimate, otherwise, we use 2. This is called nearest-neighbor interpolation. The second is to draw a straight line between 1,1 and 2,2. We look to see the value on the line for our chosen. This is a linear interpolation. It is possible to show that the formula of the line between 1,1 and 2,2 is:
- Max speed altitude (planes fly the fastest)
- Max Altitude (planes cannot fly higher)
- Ground-level speed (usually = Max speed-100)
- Max Altitude (usally = Max speed-50)
Here is the old air combat system, every plane flies and fights on the same altitude. Simple and Easy.
First talk about dogfight in the new system.
While fighters doing Air Superiority/Interception mission. They initially fly on their maximum speed altitude. The higher fighter (attacker) discovers the lower plane (defender) and starts fighting. The attacker would dive to the defender altitude. The attacker speeds would change to the attacker's level speed on the defender altitude by Linear Interpolation (While Altitude=0 Ground Speed ) plus dive speed ( 50* change of altitude per km). Then the attacker will fight with the defender with its new speed.
In the case that the mission altitude of the defender is higher than the attacker. The lower fighter (attacker) discovers the higher plane (defender) and starts fighting. The attacker would climb to the defender altitude. The attacker speeds would change to the attacker's level speed on the defender altitude by Linear Interpolation (While Altitude=Maximum Altitude, Ceiling Speed). Then the attacker fight with the defender with its new speed.
If the mission altitude of the defender is higher than the ceiling altitude of the attacker. The attacker would be unable to deal any disruption and damage to the defender.
Therefore an altitude factor would be added to the final disruption formula that the distribution formula would become.
Which altitude factor would be 0 when the mission altitude of the defender is higher than the ceiling altitude of the attacker, 1 in other scenarios.
The bombing accuracy should also decrease when the bombing altitude increase.
12.1. Mission Altitude and Tech Tree
Historically different missions were performed at different altitudes even for the same plane to balance the safety of the plane and the accuracy of bombing. Those mission altitudes were found out by many tries and errors. Therefore, in-game Tech Tree should new doctrine and technology to conduct air missions.
For example, initially TAC bomber would attack ship with level bombing in high altitude with a very low hit chance.
Researching naval strike doctrine tree that would first reduce the mission level bombing altitude which would increase the hit chance by game mechanic, not by modifier. The next step would allow TAC bomber to perform Skip-bombing which would attack from ground level which would increase the accuracy greatly. For the final doctrine, it would allow TAC bomber to do Mast-height bombing which would increase the accuracy of Skip-bombing with a modifier.
Tech-wise, guide-bomb like Fritz X would change the bombing altitude of naval strike.
In low-level ground attack wise. Initially, TAC bomber could only conduct bombing with low altitude level bombing, fighters could only dive attack and staff with guns. There would be two branches after the level bombing, strafing and dive-bombing. The dive-bombing tree would allow players to build dive-bomber; then allow fighter to carry bomb; the third one would TAC bomber to install dive brakes and perform dive-bombing; The final doctrine would allowing fighters to carrier rocket. The strafing branch would allow planes to perform skip bombing; then allow TAC bomber to equip gun pod.
The level bombing tree would be the tactic that increases the accuracy of level bombing.
Technology-wise, technology like radar, bombsight, engine, and producing tool should increase plane maximum altitude, maximum level bombing altitude and level bombing accuracy.
The rough altitude for air AA and altitude for ground AA of different proposed mission are as follow:
| Mission | Air AA Altitude(m) | Ground AA Altitude(m) |
| Level Bombing | maximum bombsight operational Altitude (maximum speed Altitude of the bomber if it is below maximum bombsight operational Altitude) | maximum bombsight operational Altitude (maximum speed Altitude of the bomber if it is below maximum bombsight operational Altitude) |
| Strafing(Mast-height bombing) | 1000 | 61 |
| Strafing(Skip-bombing) | 1000 | 61 |
| Interception | maximum speed Altitude of the aircraft (Same as the one it attacks if its maximum speed Altitude is lower than the mission altitude of the bomber) | maximum speed Altitude of the aircraft (Same as the one it attacks if its maximum speed Altitude is lower than the mission altitude of the bomber) |
| Dive Bombing | 3000 | 300 |
| Air superiority | maximum speed Altitude of the aircraft | maximum speed Altitude of the aircraft |
| Strafing(Torpedo) | 50 | 5 |
| Strafing | 600 | 23 |
12.2. Differentiate Heavy/Medium/Light AA gun from AA gun
Historically, Heavy/Medium/Light AA guns have different effective ceilings design to shoot at planes at different altitudes. Light AA from bullet caliber to 30mm would usually not connect to any director and only aim by sight would have an effective ceiling from 0 to 910m. Medium AA with caliber from 20mm to 57mm would be connected to fire directors, its effective ceiling would be from 0 to 6000m. Heavy AA with caliber start from 70 mm would able to arm its ammo with time fuse its effective ceiling would start from 910m. The altitude and efficiency of AA would increase with the R&D of fuze and director.
Other than deploying at the frontline to fight against hostile CAS, ground target and armor vehicles in the frontline, Anti-Air Battalion primarily deployed at port, airport, and city to repel enemy air strategic attack. For example, the 2nd Anti-Aircraft Brigade of UK was deployed in the Battle of France and Britain, and the North African and Italian campaigns, shooting at both strategic bombers in the rear and ground targets on the frontline. With the current off-map garrison update, would it be possible to let the garrisoning Anti-Air Battalion have some static AA value to engage strategic bombing.
Here are the proposing maximum ranges for different types of AA in different tiers.
| Type\Tier | AA I range (m) | AA II range (m) | AA III range (m) |
| Light AA (rifle caliber-20mm) | 0-1000 | 0-2000 | 0-3000 |
| Medium AA (20-57) | 0-2500 | 0-5000 | 0-7500 |
| Heavy AA (70 -152) | 0-7000 | 0-9000 | 0-11000 |
However, the effective range of AA was proved to be heavily hindered by limitations of human limitation, fuze time and gun-laying director. Therefore the effective range of those guns should never reach their maximum ones, but by developing new technology a wider effective range should be achieved.
Here's are two examples of those limitations:
| Limitation | Range (m) |
| Time fuze(Heavy AA) | Range>910 |
| Manual Control (Light AA) | Range<910 |
For the first case, the first problem is because the shell would at least fly about 910m even with the shortest times fuze setting. This range limit of above 910 can be solved by using VT fuze.
For the second case, the effective range of Light AA is heavily hindered by human limitations on manually aimed. This range limit of below 910 can be unlocked by using more advanced gun directors that can use with Light AA.
The hit chance of State anti-air would reduce by half per every 1500km of altitude.
The efficiency decay formula would be
hit chance modifier: the "Static Anti Air hit chance factor" modifier (fuse, Radar and computer tech can increase the chance of hitting for 3 to 4 times)
The proposed valve for the air unit in the next DLC:
PS 1: Most of the mechanics that mentioned here are modified from
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_combat
And
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_missions#Close air support mission
PS 2: every constant k mention above should be balancing factors which need many trial and error to find out the optimum one, therefore, only the dev term has the right tool and resources to find out
- Range: How far away missions the plane can perform.
- Air Defense: How many hits a plane can take before being shot down.
- Air Attack: How much damage we can do against airplanes.
- Wing Area: How big the wing area the plane has, higher it got tide it turns.
- Engine Power: How many engine power the plane has, higher it got greater it climbs.
- Strategic Bombing: How good a plane is at strategic bombing.
- Air Superiority: How much the plane helps the overall air superiority of a strategic area.
- Naval Attack: How much damage the plane inflicts upon hitting a ship.
- Naval Targeting: How likely the plane is to hit a ship.
- Ground Attack: How much damage the plane can do to enemy divisions on the ground when helping out in combat.
- Hard Ground Attack: How much damage the plane can do to enemy divisions on the ground when helping out in combat.
- Hard Ground Attack Targeting: How likely the plane is to hit an armored target.
- Defensive air attack: How much defensive damage we can do against airplanes. High Defensive Air Attack also helps to counter enemy Air Superiority effects.
- Intercepting attack: How much extra damage your bomber hunting weapon can do against TAC and heavy bombers.
- Max Speed: How quickly this unit can fly under optimal circumstances.
- Max speed altitude: where planes fly the fastest
- Stall Speed: The lowest speed for a plane to fly safely
- Max Altitude: where planes cannot fly higher
- Ground-level speed: usually = Max speed-100
- Max Altitude: usually = Max speed-50
- Piercing: Having equal or greater Piercing to the targets Armor value allow you to do more damage and more effectively pin down their armored forces
- Reliability: The lower the value the more likely the equipment is of suffering random failure, accidents or exploding in a fiery ball of death when lightly bumped.
- Weight: How heavy the plane is heavier it is the worse it turn and climb.
- Fuel Usage: How much fuel this unit uses while it is operating. Air and Sea units will consume fuel while on active missions or during training. Land units with fuel consumption will consume fuel in idle as well, but the combat, movement or training will further increase the consumption.
PS 1: Most of the mechanics that mentioned here are modified from
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_combat
And
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Air_missions#Close air support mission
PS 2: every constant k mention above should be balancing factors which need many trial and error to find out the optimum one, therefore, only the dev term has the right tool and resources to find out
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